5 months

Thanks to Grandpa and Grandma Gibbons, Hannah has been rolling over for the past 2 days. For Christmas they bought her a snail that plays music when you touch it. I've been a mean mom and placed it just out of her reach so she has to roll at least part way to touch it. Every time I place her on her blanket with the snail it's tummy time :) The only downfall is that she can't figure out how to roll onto her back from her stomach and it makes her pretty mad.

I can't believe Hannah is already 5 months. The time has flown by! She is so sweet that I can't imagine our lives without her. This weekend we're starting her on rice cereal and I can't wait to see how she handles it. I think it will be funny and entertaining to watch.

Christmas Vacation

We had such a wonderful Christmas. First we started by celebrating Christmas with my family on the 22nd. We went to my parents house, had dinner, opened presents, watched a movie, and spent the night- just like we usually do on Christmas Eve. Then we headed back to our house, showered, unpacked and repacked and we were off to Yakima to spend Christmas with Blake's family. At Blake's parents house we played Wii Dance 3 and it was hilarious to watch. It was so nice to relax and visit with family over the week. Hannah had so much attention and love from everyone that I wondered if she would be sad to come back home and hang out with just me during the day. She loves her grandparents and all her aunts and uncles so much. I Hope everyone else had a great Christmas.

Christmas Dress

Our ward Christmas program was last week and it was the perfect opportunity to have Hannah wear her Christmas dress. I love it on her, and I was even able to make a headband to match the tights perfectly. I can't wait for her to wear again on Christmas day.

Rolling Over

Today marks the official first day Hannah rolled over. She usually makes it almost all the way and then her shoulder gets in the way. That's when I give her a gentle push to complete the roll. Of course with this monumental event neither Blake nor I witnessed it. I was making dinner, and Blake had just gotten home and he asked me if Hannah had rolled over on her own. My response was "she must have because I left her on her back." We were so excited that we thought we'd put her on her back again to see if she would roll over for an audience. However, Blake and I got to talking and when we looked over at her she was on her stomach once again. There's always tomorrow-right?!!

The pictures below are ones of her after I have helped in the rolling over process

Growing Family

My favorite Christmas decoration is my fireplace mantel. Not long ago there were only 2 stockings, and now there are 4. I know it's kind of funny to have one for Lucy, but she's a part of our family and we even found a stocking with a couple doves on it which seemed fitting. She loves to chase birds!

Christmas Goodies

This year I've tried to make my life easier by making treats for neighbors and friends that are actually EASY to make. Normally it's fudge, reindeer poop, sugar cookies, mint chocolate chip cookies, and rice krispies. My inspiration this year came from the best cookbook My Best Bites. This is a must have cookbook. My new holiday treats are the turtle pretzels, and apple pie in a jar. They were both fun to make and are cute little gifts.

Bed Photoshoot

I can't seem to get enough of this little girl. Yesterday Hannah was lying on our bed while I was folding laundry and she looked so dang cute. I had to take some pictures.

Quite the Bear

Just after I finished gushing about how wonderful Hannah was, she decided to wake up every 2 hours last night starting at 1:00am. It has continued into today, which has made nap time difficult. Because of this I decided to put her in her bear outfit. I thought it was fitting :)
P.S. Don't let that sweet face fool you...a BEAR!

4 years and counting...

Blake and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary on December 1st. We celebrated the day skiing while my mom watched Hannah. I can't believe how fast the time goes by. We've experienced many things together in 4 years, and I can't wait to see what all the years to come hold for us.

Thankful

This holiday season has been a weird one for me. I can't seem to get really excited about Christmas. We've decorated in the house, put up the tree, decorated the outside with Christmas lights...still nothing! I think as I get older the meaning of Christmas changes for me, but the worlds view stays the same. I feel like Christmas has become so commercialized and focused on spending tons of money to buy just the right gift. When Blake and I went to Europe I saw such a different way of living. There are so many people who live much simpler lives, with much less STUFF, and are so incredibly happy. I think it's easy to become focused on always wanting the next best thing, but does that really make us happy in the end?! I have been truly blessed in my life with a great family, wonderful husband, and the sweetest daughter, that I feel like I have everything I need to make me happy. I know that may sound cheesy, but life is good.

4 months

Hannah just turned 4 months old. She is getting so big and has quite the personality. At her doctors appointment this past week she weighed 13lbs 14oz and is 24.5 inches long. She is in the 57% percentile for her height and weight, and 65% percentile for head size. Blake and I always laugh because she has a "Gibbons" head-big and round. She has been sleeping through the night for about one month, which is heaven. She still loves to be swaddled with at least one hand out so she can suck her fingers. She goes to sleep on her own in her crib without having to be rocked. She usually screams now when you rock her. I love that she's growing up and becoming independent, but it makes be a little sad at the same time. She LOVES to talk to us. She loves to sit in her Bumbo chair. She loves bath time and sucking on her rubber ducky in the tub. I can't believe how fast the time goes. Before we know it she will be crawling and walking-yikes.

Oink Oink

Hooded towels are just the cutest thing, especially when they involve an animal on the hood. Hannah's pig one still makes Blake laugh every time she wears it. I think it's one of his favorites.

Rainy Day Projects

Now that the weather has changed I seem to have much more time at home to work on little projects. Here are a few things I've been working on. Both projects were fun and simple to make. They both for the most part only required a hot glue gun. I'm all about hot glue over sewing. Learning to sew is one of my upcoming projects to start tackling.

Family Genes & Poop

A few weeks ago we noticed Hannah has really started to love sucking on her hands. She pretty much tries to stuff both fists into her mouth at once and swallow them whole. This is usually followed by some gagging and lots of drool.

So the other day I heard Hannah sucking something fierce in her room and decided to go and check it out. As a peered over the edge of her crib, I was caught by two big blue eyes blinking blankly up at me as if to say, "Do you need something? Nothing to see here daddy." I noticed that she had apparently inherited a few of her aunts' genes. Hannah's aunt Heidi and Nicole also liked to suck their ring and middle fingers as a baby.

So, of course you might be wondering why I also mentioned the word "poop" in the title to this post. Well, do I have a story for you my friends. Up to this point in Hannah's short life, we hadn't had the joy of experiencing any of those exciting "diaper" stories that all our friends told us about. That was...until a few days ago. So, I woke up to the usual squawking in the middle of the night that suggested that Hannah either needed one of the two essentials in life at her age: (1) luke-warm bottle OR (2) a diaper change. Well, needless to say, this involved the latter. As I went about carefully disarming the "bomb", I had just about finished when I heard that tell-tale "grunting". This usually leads to some kind of explosive activity, so I prepped the area with a diaper to catch any "debris" that should come my way. This worked initially...However, I should have realized that Hannah had an additional 4 AM surprise that would "shake" me from my early-morning daze. As I removed the newly soiled Pampers diaper for a fresh one, Hannah shot out a brown-liquid mass with projectile force. It was insane. It hit the wall splattering down onto the carpet and all over the changing table. I do have to say that I was quite impressed with the incredible power apparently pinned up in that little body. Trying to control my gag-reflex, I just started to laugh out loud as I didn't really know how else to react. Oh Hannah, we love you and cherish the new experiences you are bringing to our lives.

Bath Time Cont'd

We can't seem to stop taking pictures of Hannah in the bath. She loves bath time so much. She smiles, laughs, and tries to swim every time she's in the tub.

Rainy Day

It's been raining all day long, so instead of going out I thought it would be a perfect day to make some treats. Meg I got this idea from your blog-thanks. I think the top picture looks like the owl is smiling :)

Growing up so Fast

A friend of mine in our ward needed practice taking pictures of babies, and I jumped at the chance to have her photograph Hannah. I think they turned out so cute. She will already be 12 weeks this Sunday. Time flies!

Neighborly Advice

The other day I was leaving our housing development with Hannah and Lucy for a walk. Usually it's a little bit of a struggle to walk both of them by myself. Lucy is great on her leash, but there are those occasions when she sees another dog and thinks it's time to play. When that happens I'm frantically trying to reign her in, while trying to maintain the BOB so it doesn't get away from me. It's a total disaster to say the least, and I'm sure quite the sight for others watching. My neighbor used to have a boxer and when she would take her dog and daughter for a walk she would loop the dog leash around her waist so she could have both hands on the stroller, and not have to hold onto the leash. I was slightly skeptical when she showed me, but I gave it a try. After trying it once and having success, I still thought it was pure luck. I have now tried it several times, and tonight I even tried it when Lucy and I went for a run. It's pure genius! It keeps Lucy right at my side, and the stroller in control. If you have a dog and want to walk/run with the dog and a stroller I would highly recommend trying this method. It really does work!

Memory Lane...Duck Tour with the Posners

So I was putting together a slideshow for Sheena when I came across a few pictures from a visit our friends, the Posners, made to Seattle. During their stay we decided to take a "Duck Tour" in downtown Seattle to give them a real taste of the Emerald City. Today, when I looked at this picture I just started to laugh out loud; it has a funny story.

So we were driving along in this tour bus and the wind started to pick up. All of a sudden a guy's Mariners cap flew off his head and the bill of the hat collides with the nose of a guy behind me. The impact of the flying object, or Mariners hat, came with such velocity that is actually cut the bridge of the guy's nose behind me. As I am turning to Dan to ask him if he saw what happened, my nose just started to bleed. I don't know if it was out of sympathy for the poor fellow in the back or what, but Sheena, Dan, and Meg started laughing hysterically. Sheena actually started video taping me (as seen in the picture). Anyway, thought I would share; that's Karma for ya.

Proud Mom

You know how everyone thinks there baby is the cutest. Well I'm no exception. I think Hannah is darn cute and gets cuter everyday.

The top 3 I took one day while playing with her on the floor. The bottom 2 her Uncle Brandt took the day of her baby blessing.

Thought of the Day

Do you ever have the idea that the grass MAY be greener on the other side? Today I had that thought for a split second, and then I realized that life may throw us some bumps in the road, but living in the moment is so much better than wishing for another time in life. Here's how my day lead up to this thought. Hannah is usually great in the car so I decided to head to University Village to do a little shopping. Usually when I go I leave before noon to avoid traffic, but I thought today I would take the risk leaving at 1:30. Once we got to U Village, after taking the wrong exit, we headed into our first store. We had a return to make and we ended up getting the cashier that was new and didn't know how to do an online return. I was willing to be patient until Hannah decided that she didn't want to be patient and started to scream. We're talking full on scream, not just a little whimper, or cry, but SCREAM. Ten minutes later we left the store, and the second we were outside Hannah was asleep again. I took that opportunity to head into another store. Things were nice and quiet up until I went into the dressing room to try on a few things. That's when the screaming started again. After leaving that store empty handed I felt like I deserved a treat from the Confectionery, which is this huge candy shop. Once in that store Hannah was back at it. To make matters worse I had to wait behind these 2 kids with their mom that were taking FOREVER to decide what to spend there $1.00 on. After 3 stores of complete failure I had one last place to go into before heading back home. I had to go into the grocery store. I knew I had to be fast because now she was asleep again, but I was definitely on borrowed time. Into the store we went without my list that I know I brought, but couldn't find. Things were going well, until we got to the check out line. As luck would have it that I got in the line behind someone that had a price discrepancy. I wanted to give them the difference of money myself just so I could check out and get outside. It's funny when you're in public and your baby is crying the looks you get. The moms close to our age always give a look of sorrow, like they can relate and they feel bad. The older moms look at us like we're neglecting our children and being a bad mom. After the grocery store we were back in the car heading home. We got stuck in traffic, not on the freeway, but getting to the freeway passing by the University of Washington. That's when I had the thought that I would love to go back 10 years to when I was in college. Life was so much simpler. Life consisted of going to class if you felt like it, taking tests, hanging out with friends, going on dates...the carefree life. No crying babies in the car, mortgage payments, finding a job that offers a 401K and health insurance, paying your own bills, not going on dates with your husband every weekend. But when I looked into my rear view mirror and saw Hannah screaming I thought about how life is now and that I wouldn't trade it for anything. If we are always thinking about how life COULD BE instead of enjoying the way LIFE IS, we will miss out on so many wonderful moments. NO, the grass is not always greener on the other side!

Santa Claus Came Early This Year...

So I was giving Hannah a bath this evening and noticed that an exceptionally large amount of bubble bath was building up in the tub. I decided to give her a white afro and beard. The results were pretty funny; she was diggin' it.

Bath Time

Hannah loves bath time! She can be crying and the second she hits that water she's splashing around and loving it. Here are some recent pictures of her.

Mommyhood

Everyone keeps asking me what I think about being a mom, and that's a really hard question to answer. It's wonderful, fulfilling, tiring, stressful, rewarding, blissful, and emotional. These are all words that describe the various moments that have occurred in the last 4 weeks with Hannah. Just when you think you have her figured out, she throws you a curve ball and you have to start all over again. I thought babies this young didn't have a personality of their own. I thought parents were able to shape the personality you wanted your kids to have if you did it early on in their lives. Wow, was I wrong!! Hannah is a really good baby, even with her hard to figure out moments. Every night when I'm up feeding her, and can barely keep my eyes opened, I remember to cherish even those moments. It won't be long before she won't want to be held or snuggle in your arms, and right now those are the moments that melt my heart.

Happy Belated

It's official...I'm the BIG 30! My actual birthday was on the 10th, but Blake and I really celebrated it last night by going to the Josh Groban concert. It was AMAZING!! I'm so glad we were able to see him perform in Seattle. I must say I was a little hesitant to go and leave Hannah behind with my mom. Not that I didn't think my mom could handle babysitting, but it was hard for me to leave her for that long. She did great with grandma, and grandma loved spending time with her. If anyone ever has a chance to see Josh Groban live, I must insist that you do. It is so worth the money!